Adventure C: Ship of Doom
Reviews Summary Your Computer Issue 10 Writer: Eric Deeson Artic Computing, has three variations of adventure. Imaginatively called A, B and C, they are all neat, well-designed and fastmoving non-graphics adventures. In the £9 Adventure C, you are in space, escaping from an alien cruiser on a rather horrid mission. This is very like the others — text only, a good range of commands; and highly tormenting. It is a high-speed game because of its machine-code program, and its use of fast mode and Scroll. Sinclair User Issue 3 Writer: Phil Garratt ARTIC Computing advertises three Adventures, with the rather uninspired titles of A, B and C. They are written in machine code and seem to be from the same original master program, so we can probably expect more adventures in the future. The 13K Adventure C is the largest of the three and is set on an alien spaceship. The object is to press a control button somewhere which will release your own ship from the fiendish Gravitron Beam and allow you to escape. The program contains more than 35 locations and 40 objects, and is, I think, on two levels separated by a hidden door. Despite having spent hours exploring, and manipulating objects on the first level, I still have not been able to break through. Having cheated furiously I know that, apart from the control button, the other level contains more rooms and objects, and a distinctly X-rated Android I would like to meet. All three programs respond to "Help", although rarely helpfully, and "R" repeats the room description. Despite the large vocabulary, the response time is, to all intents and purposes, instantaneous, which makes a difficult and frustrating adventure easier to bear. All the programs use the Artic keyboard scanning routine, which means that there is no response to the break key. The only way I have found to stop the programs, so that I could make a security copy, is by entering three or four "Newlines", and then a complete line of letters which overloads the display file and stops the program with a "5" error. Having done this, I discovered that the instructions for Adventure C got the name of the program wrong. The filename is ADVENT C not ADVENT as stated. At £5, £7 and £7 for A, B and C respectively, they are all good value, and will take many, many hours to master. News C+VG Issue 6 - (April 1982) News: Here's the latest in brainware - page 14 A band of roving aliens are scanning the universe for humanoids with the decidedly unfriendly aim of taking out their brains and replacing them with microchips. What do you mean you know someone they found already!? Your task is to defend your ship from the aliens and escape the gravity beam which has sucked your ship into the alien cruiser's flight path. It is during a reconnaissance mission that your android Fred spots the alien ship and warns you of their intentions. Your adventure leads you through space into all sorts of hazards. You explore computer rooms, an android pleasure room, penetrate force shields and fend off laser guns. Adventure C makes full use of the Sinclair ZX81's 16K memory packing in as much as possible. Artic Computing in Hull is the supplier and will sell it for £9. Artic Computing is establishing a series of adventure games which are written in-house in machine code for speed. Category:ZX81 Games Category:Spectrum Games Category:Artic Computing Category:Your Computer Reviews Category:Sinclair User Reviews Category:Sinclair Research Category:ZX Computing Reviews Category:C+VG Reviews Category:Home Computing Weekly Reviews